Poker Room Reviews

There are hundreds of online poker rooms out there but randomly picking a site to play on is like open shoving with 7-2 at the start of a tournament. In other words, there are poker rooms online you DON’T want to play on.

Only the best poker rooms online make the upper echelon of our toplists and give you the chance to make the most of your deposit. Our reviews rank poker sites based on everything from the quality of the software and security to sign-up bonuses and average skill level of the competition. You probably want to play against bad poker players, right?

Our top poker room reviews also recommend the best places to play No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha in addition to more obscure games like Seven-Card Stud and 2-7 Lowball.

For over 10 years PokerListings has worked with the biggest and best online poker rooms to provide the biggest sign-up bonuses, bar none. Check the poker room review toplist below for more detailed explanations of each poker room's strengths and weaknesses.

We’ve been doing this since online poker exploded in the early 2000s and we’ve learned a thing or two along the way.

Sites open to U.S. poker players are marked with a flag. All links from this page guarantee you the world's highest sign-up bonus.

About PokerListings Poker Room Reviews

At its very core PokerListings is a database of online poker room reviews and poker site rankings. That’s how it’s been since the very beginning and our editors are all very experienced online poker players with countless hours logged on online poker sites like PokerStars, PartyPoker, Titan Poker and more.

The objective of our top-rated poker room reviews is to give our visitors all the information necessary to make an informed decision about where to find the best online poker site. Below is an explanation of some of the main factors our poker room reviews are based on.

Software

A poker room’s online client obviously has a huge effect on the overall user experience.

Many poker rooms share common software platforms and we meticulously detail the pros and cons of playing on certain networks compared to others.

Playing on a poker site with buggy and generally unappealing software is something that no poker fan should be subjected to. Some software is simply sluggish and bloated while other software is lightweight and lightning fast.

It also depends what kind of player you are because certain software is much better for tournaments while other software excels in running cash games. There are some features that can only be found at certain sites like four-color decks, re-sizable tables or the ability to play more than four tables at once.

There are also questions about compatibility because some sites only run on Windows computers and not Apple devices. We take all of these factors into account when we are reviewing the best poker software.

Traffic

It goes without saying that player site traffic is very important. You want someone to play against right? There are sites where there are games going off 24/7 and then there are sites where you may have to wait an hour just to play a specific type of tournament. Player volume is the biggest factor in deciding how fast you’ll be able to find a game.

Keep in mind that some sites offer more tournaments while others are focused on cash games.

It’s also worth noting that while a lot of poker sites offer less popular games like Seven-Card Stud and Draw Poker that doesn’t necessarily mean they have traffic in those games. When we review online rooms we take into account traffic in every game a particular site offers.

You should also remember that some sites hit peak traffic during European hours while others are more focused on North American time zones.

Also some sites get almost all their traffic in micro to small stakes while others offer legitimate high-stakes volume.

Player Skill

This isn’t something that every new player immediately thinks about but when it comes to poker the vast majority of people would rather play against bad players because making money is fun.

The average skill level varies considerable from site to site and we try to guide our players to the softer sites or at least let them know where they’ll find the tougher competition.

It can be tough to quantify which sites have the “worst” players but we take into account the average amount of cash contributed to a pot pre-flop to help find loose players.

Sometimes you’ll find the softest sites are actually the lesser-known ones. We’re always hunting for the next hidden gem. Whatever you do, don’t discount player skill when it comes to signing up for a new poker site.

Game Variety

If you only want to play No-Limit Texas Hold’em, this isn’t a huge issue. But even if you’re the most steadfast Hold’em purist, we recommend trying your hand at games like Pot-Limit Omaha and Seven-Card Stud.

You might be surprised how much you enjoy a little variety. Some sites are vastly superior when it comes to their selection of games.

Don’t like any of the basic games? You’ll be happy to know there are plenty of sites that offer even more obscure games like 2-7 Lowball, Razz, Badugi and Five-Card Draw.

There are even some sites that spread gambling favorites like Open-Face Chinese Poker.

Even beyond all the traditional games there are sites that offer poker variants they invented. These can be a welcome change of pace to standard No-Limit Hold’em and you simply won’t find them anywhere else.

You might find an edge in those games, considering everyone is still trying to figure out the best strategy.

For a full rundown of the rules for most poker variations, visit our poker rules page.

Bonuses and Promotions

You may or may not know that the online poker industry is highly competitive. In order to attract new players online poker sites will quite often host free tournaments (called freerolls) or straight up offer bonus cash for a deposit.

If you like free money then you’ll want to play close attention to the various bonuses and promotions on each poker site. At PokerListings.com we pride ourselves on securing the best poker bonuses in the industry.

One of the most popular online poker site promotions is the deposit match, where the site will match whatever you deposit - provided you play enough hands on the site. Some of the top deposit matches go up to 200% and will match up to a staggering $2,000.

You might be surprised to learn that some of the best deals are located on the smaller sites that have to market their sites aggressively.

Some players base their entire game on finding the best bonuses and running up a bankroll from there. At PokerListings we save you time by compiling a comprehensive list of the various online poker sites and the sign-up bonuses they offer.

Support and Security

Never play online poker on a site you don’t trust. This is perhaps the most important feature of all.

You absolutely have to feel safe on the poker site you chose to play at. PokerListings.com does in-depth security analysis and only lists sites that have achieved online certification.

It helps that we communicate regularly with online poker sites to get a good idea of what’s going on behind the scenes.

Equally important to software security is having solid customer support options in case something should go awry and you need to talk to someone.

Most top-tier online poker sites now have instant chat options to speak with a customer support agent live immediately.

When reviewing online poker sites we carefully take into account the security of an online poker client as well as the variety of support options and the quality of said options.

Note About Law & Legislation

PokerListings.com is an international brand and we’re always tracking the legality of online poker in various countries around the globe. Our toplists can be filtered by country to give you an idea of what’s legal in the country where you reside. Of course online poker law is always changing and we frequently update our lists to reflect that.

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kharoav 2015-03-12 09:57:42

WHere is partipoker?

Tracker 2015-03-11 11:21:37

Need some visuals for the registration process.

About PokerListings

PokerListings.com is the world's largest and most trusted online poker guide, offering the best online poker bonus deals guaranteed, over $1m in exclusive freerolls every year and the most free poker content available on the Web.